Growing Pains
by gentillealouette
Summary: One-line request fills; various pairings.


Hello hello! This is going to be a collection of one-line request fills from tumblr. You can request them too if you want but not here, go do it there! The link is on my page. I'll write whatever. Enjoy! Ah, also, the title is just the song I happened to be listening to and has nothing to do with the stories. There's no common theme. Whoops!

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**(Grimsley/Burgh)**

He only rarely lets his eyes leave their designated spot on the wall opposite to search the face of the Gym Leader before him, awkwardly, from behind a jutting elbow or over an uncomfortably twisted shoulder. Burgh, absorbed in his work, never meets his gaze; he's busy memorising the dips and knolls of his subject's collarbones and hips, the exact angles of his jaw and his nose, the way his fingers taper just so. Grimsley isn't used to being looked at like a work of art, and when Burgh finally does look up – after hours, sometimes – having finished his work, and meet his gaze, the look in the painter's eyes betrays complete entrancement.

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**(Ghetsis/Cheren)**

There's no fear or vulnerability in the boy's eyes when he looks up; just anger and resentment, pure and simple. Hands bound behind his back and without his glasses, Cheren can only follow the sound of Ghetsis' voice and his footsteps as he paces at his leisure back and forth, gesturing broadly, his words silky and razor-sharp as he details to the Pokémon Trainer the importance of respect for one's elders (much less their superiors), the improvement in behavior he expects from now on. Ghetsis turns and kneels before the boy, cupping his chin with exceedingly – terrifyingly – gentle hands. "Understood?" With a truly noble attempt at bravado, the boy spits in his face. It doesn't take half a second for Ghetsis' painstaking civility to turn itself right back around.

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**(White/Bianca)**

Stretched out on the sand with her head in Bianca's lap, White has fallen asleep to the sound of the waves and of her friend's heartbeat. Bianca has seen White's sleeping face before, of course, countless times, but not in months – since she met N, more or less, all White has done has been battle and battle and battle some more. Cover it up though she may with customary twinkling smile and explosive laughter, White's exhaustion is not lost on Bianca, who, examining her friend's face with utmost concentration, traces the lines under her eyes and the ruptures along her lips with halting, gentle fingers, wishing helplessly to be strong enough to be of some use.

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**(Wallace/Cheren)**

He rings the doorbell once to no response; twice, three times, four, with a longer pause between each. No footsteps come thudding down the stairs, no familiar lilting voice calls out for him to hold on – or even to go away. If not for the unmistakable sound of Elizabeth's chirping from within, Cheren would believe the house empty. But he has not come all this way to turn back at the first obstacle – "please don't leave me," he remembers Wallace mumbling into his neck, and he doesn't intend to. Unaware that the Champion sits silently with his back to the other side of the door, listening, Cheren slides down against it, crosses his legs and begins his apology.

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**(Green/Red)**

More than anything else, it's the silence that gets to him; the stoicism and the apathy he can handle, the constant losses, fine; even the stolen love and adulation Green can bear more easily than the silence. He fills every second with incessant chatter – meaningless banter, shallow insults and provocations, breezy assertions of his own toughness and superiority – anything to eclipse Red's telling muteness. Speak to me, he wants to shout, shaking him by the shoulders – damn it, if you're really the great guy they all make you out to be, why won't you say something? He can picture it: Red's lips will part, his eyes widening in surprise, one hand coming up to steady his hat, and finally – voice hoarse from lack of use – he'll speak up. "Geez, Green, take it easy," he'll mutter, and there: his humanity, just like Green's, with all of the weaknesses and doubts that accompany it.

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**(Anthony/Cheren)**

Cheren is never making a bet with Bianca again, he tells himself, and grinds his teeth as the Ferris wheel ascends.


End file.
